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Black snowflakes

I'm not even sure who Gascoigne is, though the name seems vaguely familiar. Whoever he is though, he got off very lightly. I would have doubled the fine as it was a very poor, unfunny joke that has been around for at least a century. I think I first heard it back in second class at school.

But then I read that the fine wasn't for his feeble sense of humour.

He was fined because the so called joke was directed at a niggercoonspadewogblackie Person Of Non Caucasian Extraction.

There are a couple of little puzzles here that I admit are confusing me. First of all, who made the complaint? There must have been a complaint or there wouldn't have been a court case. Was it the PONCE himself who made the complaint, in which case he is pretty pathetic security guard if he's going to cry at a few words? If the poor little [black] snowflake is going to be "humiliated" by an ancient and exceedingly poor joke then what the fuck is he going to be like in the middle of a full scale riot? God help us if someone came at him with a knife.

Or was it a bystander and not the PONCE, in which case they should mind their own fucking business.

Then there is the accusation of "threatening or abusive words or behaviour".

I presume the "behaviour" meant that Gascoigne turned his head towards the PONCE before uttering those now immortal words, but if turning your head is "threatening behaviour" then we're all fucked.

So I can only assume that it was the words that were "threatening or abusive". Was the PONCE rendered unconscious after being struck on the head with an innuendo? Was he half beaten to death with an oxymoron? Was his eye put out with an errant split infinitive?

When I was a kid and someone teased me the parents would respond with the stock response – sticks and stones may break your bones but words will never hurt you. Sound advice. True advice. Ignore.

But now a security guard can be reduced to a quivering jelly of nerves because of a bad joke?

“threatening or abusive words or behaviour” – well it’s a damned shame that plod is more interested when it’s done by a has been footballer than when it’s our friend in Norfolk and some of the things he’s said about Anna Raccoon. Frankly the comments he’s aimed at a dying woman go well beyond threatening and abusive!

If I were a black person who looked like that golliwog I’d be seeing my doctor (and tailor).

‘struth – if the majority of black people just want to get on with their lives and earn respect as decent human beings – just like the rest of us – then their spokespersons ain’t doing them any favours.

Seriously though the bloke should have grown a pair and just ignored it. It would have been forgotten about in minutes.

I used to work in the UK and was never called by my name – I was always "Mick", "Paddy" or just plain "Irish". On top of that were the jokes about coming from the bogs or only eating potatoes, where I was always on the receiving end. No sweat. I just ignored them as they weren't any kind of "threat" or "abuse". Sometimes I laughed [if the joke was a good one] but generally I never reacted one way or another because it didn't bother me.

Likewise when I lived in Australia in the '70s. As a 'Pom' (or, more popularly, 'Pommie bastard'), I was given quite a hard time. For the most part not malicious at all, just banter, but most definitely what would be considered today as 'racist hate speech'. But if I'd taken offence and had a fit of the vapours (it was in fact water off a duck's back to me, and I gave as good as I got), I probably wouldn't have had any friends at all. In those days, the Aussies were a different breed to today. There was no virtue-signalling and mealy-mouthed liberalism then. They were rough and tough and valued their freedoms. And if they liked and respected you (even if you were a Pom), would do anything for you.